Art. 61.02. CRIMINAL COMBINATION AND CRIMINAL STREET GANG INTELLIGENCE DATABASE; SUBMISSION CRITERIA. (a) Subject to Subsection (b), a criminal justice agency or a juvenile justice agency shall compile criminal information into an intelligence database for the purpose of investigating or prosecuting the criminal activities of criminal combinations or criminal street gangs.
(b) A law enforcement agency in a municipality with a population of 50,000 or more or in a county with a population of 100,000 or more shall compile and maintain in a local or regional intelligence database criminal information relating to a criminal street gang as provided by Subsection (a). The information must be compiled and maintained in accordance with the criminal intelligence systems operating policies established under 28 C.F.R. Section 23.1 et seq. and the submission criteria established under Subsection (c).
(b-1) Information described by this article may be compiled on paper, by computer, or in any other useful manner by a criminal justice agency, juvenile justice agency, or law enforcement agency.
(c) Criminal information collected under this chapter relating to a criminal street gang must:
(1) be relevant to the identification of an organization that is reasonably suspected of involvement in criminal activity; and
(2) consist of:
(A) a judgment under any law that includes, as a finding or as an element of a criminal offense, participation in a criminal street gang;
(B) a self-admission by the individual of criminal street gang membership that is made during a judicial proceeding; or
(C) except as provided by Subsection (d), any two of the following:
(i) a self-admission by the individual of criminal street gang membership that is not made during a judicial proceeding, including the use of the Internet or other electronic format or medium to post photographs or other documentation identifying the individual as a member of a criminal street gang;
(ii) an identification of the individual as a criminal street gang member by a reliable informant or other individual;
(iii) a corroborated identification of the individual as a criminal street gang member by an informant or other individual of unknown reliability;
(iv) evidence that the individual frequents a documented area of a criminal street gang and associates with known criminal street gang members;
(v) evidence that the individual uses, in more than an incidental manner, criminal street gang dress, hand signals, tattoos, or symbols, including expressions of letters, numbers, words, or marks, regardless of how or the means by which the symbols are displayed, that are associated with a criminal street gang that operates in an area frequented by the individual and described by Subparagraph (iv);
(vi) evidence that the individual has been arrested or taken into custody with known criminal street gang members for an offense or conduct consistent with criminal street gang activity;
(vii) evidence that the individual has visited a known criminal street gang member, other than a family member of the individual, while the gang member is confined in or committed to a penal institution; or
(viii) evidence of the individual's use of technology, including the Internet, to recruit new criminal street gang members.
(d) Evidence described by Subsections (c)(2)(C)(iv) and (vii) is not sufficient to create the eligibility of a person's information to be included in an intelligence database described by this chapter unless the evidence is combined with information described by another subparagraph of Subsection (c)(2)(C).
(e) In this article:
(1) "Family member" means a person related to another person within the third degree by consanguinity or affinity, as described by Subchapter B, Chapter 573, Government Code, except that the term does not include a person who is considered to be related to another person by affinity only as described by Section 573.024(b), Government Code.
(2) "Penal institution" means a confinement facility operated by or under a contract with any division of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, a confinement facility operated by or under contract with the Texas Juvenile Justice Department, or a juvenile secure pre-adjudication or post-adjudication facility operated by or under a local juvenile probation department, or a county jail.
Added by Acts 1995, 74th Leg., ch. 671, Sec. 1, eff. Aug. 28, 1995. Amended by Acts 1999, 76th Leg., ch. 1154, Sec. 3, eff. Sept. 1, 1999.
Amended by:
Acts 2007, 80th Leg., R.S., Ch. 258 (S.B. 11), Sec. 18.05, eff. September 1, 2007.
Acts 2009, 81st Leg., R.S., Ch. 736 (S.B. 418), Sec. 1, eff. September 1, 2009.
Acts 2009, 81st Leg., R.S., Ch. 1130 (H.B. 2086), Sec. 36, eff. September 1, 2009.
Acts 2011, 82nd Leg., R.S., Ch. 380 (S.B. 315), Sec. 2, eff. June 17, 2011.
Acts 2015, 84th Leg., R.S., Ch. 734 (H.B. 1549), Sec. 8, eff. September 1, 2015.
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